Which Bible movies are getting the most views on Netflix?

Last week, Netflix released a list of viewing statistics for over 18,000 films on their streaming service. The list covers all the films and TV shows that were watched for at least 50,000 hours during the first six months of this year (January to June), and my friend Matt Page notes that a few Bible films appeared on this list.

I thought it might be fun to expand on Matt’s list by searching for all the titles that I’ve been including on my Bible-movie box-office chart, and by doing a bit of back-of-the-napkin math (as Sean McNulty calls it) to see how many times a film or show would have been viewed if every single film or show had been watched from start to finish. (Basically, take the number of hours viewed and divide by runtime.)

The top two Bible films or shows, by far, are Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and the first season of The Chosen, both of which rank among the top 750 titles on the list.

Noah was viewed for 29.5 million hours in the first six months of this year, while The Chosen was right behind it, with 27.6 million hours of viewing.

Does that mean they’re (almost) equally popular? Depends on how you look at it. The first season of The Chosen is nearly three times as long as Noah, so if you divide the number of hours viewed by the runtime of each show, Noah was being watched more frequently, or by many more people, than The Chosen… but for a business like Netflix, what ultimately counts is how much time people spend on their service.

Anyway. After scrolling through the first thousand titles on Netflix’s list, I decided I didn’t have time to scroll through the rest, so I resorted to using search terms like “gospel”, “jesus”, “commandments”, etc., and I looked for the titles of every movie I could think of that I had written about in the past quarter-century.

The list below is what I found.

Note: each line item below includes:

• Rank — Title (year) — Available globally (yes/no) — Hours — Runtime — Views (i.e. hours divided by runtime)
  • With regard to rank, Netflix has rounded each film’s hours to the nearest 100,000, and they have apparently listed films alphabetically whenever they were tied for the same number of hours. So when, say, there are five films with 29,500,000 hours, I assume they are all tied for 649th place.

And with that, here are the films and shows that I found:

• 649 — Noah (2014) — No — 29,500,000 — 2h18m — 12,826,087 views
• 723 — The Chosen: Season 1 (2019) — No — 27,600,000 — 6h15m — 4,416,000 views
  • Note: Netflix only has the first season of this series.
• 923 — Messiah: Season 1 (2020) — Yes — 23,000,000 — 7h29m — 3,073,497 views
  • Note: This is not a biblical series—it concerns a possible messiah who appears in the present day—but I’m including it because it was much-hyped at the time as one of the many religion-adjacent shows produced by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, creators of The Bible miniseries.
  • It’s remarkable that this series racked up so many views in the first half of 2023, given that it premiered in 2020 and was cancelled just a couple months later, and I haven’t heard anyone talk about it since.
• 2322 — María Magdalena: Season 1 (2018-2019) — No — 8,600,000 — unknown
  • This appears to be a Mexican TV series that aired a few years ago.
  • The IMDb says it had 52 episodes, Wikipedia says it had 60. The IMDb says each episode was an hour long, but I assume that includes commercial breaks.
  • If we divide the number of hours watched by 60, this show got roughly 143,333 views (assuming everyone who watched it did so from start to finish). That number goes up if each episode is shorter than an hour without commercials, or if the IMDb is correct and there are fewer than 60 episodes overall.
• 2349 — Risen (2016) — No — 8,500,000 — 1h47m — 4,766,355 views
• 2875 — Year One (2009) — No — 6,600,000 — 1h37m — 4,082,474 views
• 2944 — The Star (2017) — No — 6,400,000 — 1h26m — 4,465,116 views
  • Note: This is a Christmas cartoon, and this is how many times it was watched during the first half of the year, not the half that has Christmas in it.
• 5394 — The Prince of Egypt (1998) — No — 2,400,000 — 1h39m — 1,454,545 views
• 6161 — Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) — Yes — 1,800,000 — 1h34m — 1,148,936 views
• 6848 — The Shack (2017) — No — 1,400,000 — 2h12m — 636,364 views
  • This film is set in the present day but features Jesus as one of its characters.
• 7313 — Joseph, King of Dreams (2000) — No — 1,200,000 — 1h14m — 972,973 views
• 7552 — Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) — No — 1,100,000 — 1h48m — 611,111 views
  • This film is set primarily in the present day but is about a genie who has been around since the time of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
• 11356 — Hail, Caesar! (2016) — No — 300,000 — 1h46m — 169,811 views
  • This is a movie about the making of a Bible movie (and other movies).
• 11356 — Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018) — No — 300,000 — 1h46m — 169,811 views
• 14402 — Jesus Code: Season 1 (2015) — No — 100,000 — 4h11m — 23,904 views
  • This appears to be an alternate title for the docu-series Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery. I’m getting the episode runtimes from the IMDb.
• 14402 — Jesus Loves Me / Jesus liebt mich (2012) — No — 100,000 — 1h40m — 60,000 views
  • This German film isn’t really a Bible film, but I’m including it because it’s a comedy in which Jesus returns to Earth.
• 14402 — Mary Magdalene (2018) — No — 100,000 — 2h — 50,000 views
• 14402 — Ooops! Noah Is Gone… (2015) — No — 100,000 — 1h27m — 68,966 views
  • This is an internationally-produced animated film that was released in the US as All Creatures Big and Small and in the UK and Ireland as Two by Two.
• 14402 — The Emigrant (1994) — No — 100,000 — 2h9m — 46,511 views
  • This is an Egyptian film that is loosely based on the story of Joseph.
• 14402 — The Song (2014) — No — 100,000 — 1h56m — 51,724 views
  • This film reimagines Solomon as a modern-day country-music star.

The list above follows the Netflix order, where the shows are ranked by the number of hours viewed. Here is how they rank by number of back-of-the-napkin-math “views”:

• Noah (2014) — 29,500,000 — 2h18m — 12,826,087 views
• Risen (2016) — 8,500,000 — 1h47m — 4,766,355 views
• The Star (2017) — 6,400,000 — 1h26m — 4,465,116 views
• The Chosen: Season 1 (2019) — 27,600,000 — 6h15m — 4,416,000 views
• Year One (2009) — 6,600,000 — 1h37m — 4,082,474 views
• Messiah: Season 1 (2020) — 23,000,000 — 7h29m — 3,073,497 views
• The Prince of Egypt (1998) — 2,400,000 — 1h39m — 1,454,545 views
• Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) — 1,800,000 — 1h34m — 1,148,936 views
• Joseph, King of Dreams (2000) — 1,200,000 — 1h14m — 972,973 views
• The Shack (2017) — 1,400,000 — 2h12m — 636,364 views
• Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) — 1,100,000 — 1h48m — 611,111 views
• Hail, Caesar! (2016) — 300,000 — 1h46m — 169,811 views
• Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018) — 300,000 — 1h46m — 169,811 views
• María Magdalena: Season 1 (2018-2019) — 8,600,000 — 143,333+ views
• Ooops! Noah Is Gone… (2015) — 100,000 — 1h27m — 68,966 views
• Jesus Loves Me / Jesus liebt mich (2012) — 100,000 — 1h40m — 60,000 views
• The Song (2014) — 100,000 — 1h56m — 51,724 views
• Mary Magdalene (2018) — 100,000 — 2h — 50,000 views
• The Emigrant (1994) — 100,000 — 2h9m — 46,511 views
• Jesus Code: Season 1 (2015) — 100,000 — 4h11m — 23,904 views

And, I think that about covers it. Let me know if I missed anything!